


That One Time Ryan Threw Up On Stage

by EdgarAllenPoet



Category: Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-12
Updated: 2014-08-12
Packaged: 2018-02-12 19:22:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2121747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EdgarAllenPoet/pseuds/EdgarAllenPoet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The title explains it all, really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That One Time Ryan Threw Up On Stage

It was all Brendon's fault, essentially. Ryan was a mystical creature who never got sick, or at least hadn't been sick since the flu of ‘87. Spencer could testify to that. But then Brendon, who was suffering through a cold, had to go and sneeze on him while they were watching a movie, and two days later Ryan has contracted the plague. But he couldn't tell the other guys, not after he laughed Brendon's apologies off and bragged to them about how he had the world’s greatest immune system. Ryan didn't like to be wrong very much. He liked even less to be sick. But he figured those were just two things he was going to have to keep under cover for a few days till the cold passed. After all, it was just a cold. Nothing to get worked up over.

 

Ryan was dying- honest to god dying, he was sure of it, and he wanted nothing more than to carry on about it until Jon made him soup and Spencer promised to plan his funeral. But he couldn't tell anyone, because he was Ryan Ross and he didn't get sick and he wasn't about to whine about it and let someone else take care of him.

When Brendon got sick, he became the worlds whiniest cuddler, sticking to anyone who would let him and sniffling and whimpering all day long. Ryan envied him just a little bit as he pressed his pillow over his head because the guys were being too fucking loud and his head hurt and his nose was half plugged up and his stomach felt funny and he was dying. Ryan was going to die. He just hoped it happened soon.

 

Ryan hated interviews on a good day (okay maybe he didn’t hate them. He liked talking about music. He liked talking about his lyrics and the inspiration and the process, the only downside was the talking part, and the interviewer part, and… What Ryan really needed was a machine that could take all of his amazingly awesome and intelligent thoughts and put them into words for him and present them to the world, that way he wouldn’t have to talk to anybody, and everybody would already know. Or maybe he just needed to write a book).

Anyways, Ryan was grumpy about interviews on a good day, but on a bad day, especially a day where he was sick and had been woken up by falling out of his bunk while the bus driver (someone let Brendon drive. Who the HELL let Brendon drive!?) took too sharp of a left turn. Ryan had flown out of his bunk with a squawk and hit the floor hard. Jon, who was getting high, had giggled hysterically and Spencer didn’t even try not to laugh. Assholes. Ryan was going to kill them both by coughing on them and infecting them with the plague of death. 

Ryan had stolen some of the cold medicine Zack bought for Brendon, drank two Redbulls, and did twenty jumping jacks when no one was watching just to get himself up to a functional level. The downside was that the bubbles in the Redbulls made him burp and coupled with the jumping jacks, he ended up throwing up in the kitchen sink. At least Brendon was asleep and Spencer was in the bathroom and Jon and Zack were… somewhere. Nobody saw him do it, so nobody knew he was sick. 

He let Zack escort (drag) him to the interview and got himself a cup of coffee once there, just something warm to hold in his hands, because he seriously still felt like falling asleep on the stop. If he pressed his fingers to the not-sleeve-protected part of the cup it burned just enough to keep him awake.

“I’m here with Ryan Ross, the lead guitar and lyricist for the band Panic! at the Disco. Brendon was supposed to be here too, but he’s getting over a cold and needs to save his voice for the show tonight,” 

Ryan hated him at that moment, mostly because he was a bit loopy from the medicine and the throwing up and the walking, and partially because he was jealous and wanted to be asleep right now too. He blinked when he realized the interviewer had asked him a question and blushed. Oops.

“I’m sorry.. uh.. what?” 

She smiled at him. “Your head must be up in the clouds. Thinking about the new album?”

Ryan snapped himself out of it and told her about how awesome the new album was going to be. 

 

He figured that he could take a nap after the interview and would be all better (a little bit better (slightly less dead)) for the show that night, but the nap did absolutely nothing to help. He woke up feeling worse, and he couldn’t fucking breathe because his nose had become useless and his stomach felt really unsettled. Just watching people walk around the dressing room made him feel a little nauseous. He was going to die.

“Dude, are you okay?” Spencer asked, sitting next to him. The couch dipped and Ryan almost threw up all over Spencer. But he didn’t. Thank God.

He tried to remember how he would react normally, when he wasn’t sick, because even though he couldn’t even remember why he was pretending he wasn’t sick, he wasn’t ready to give up the charade yet. 

Ryan rolled his eyes and kicked Spencer in the ankle. “I’m great, Mom,” he said, then grinned a tiny bit, and Spencer just rolled his eyes and kicked back, grinning one of those Spencer grins that meant Ryan had totally just won. 

Ryan snuck out to the hall and paid one of the techies to run to the nearest walgreens and get him some peptobismol. The guy came back fifteen minutes later and Ryan drank almost half the bottle, because if his stomach didn’t stop tossing about dangerously, a few front row fans would be getting way closer to Ryan than they wanted to. Wouldn’t that make a great story? Ryan Ross Pukes On Fans. After that interview earlier he was sure there would already be stories flying around. He felt like shit and he probably looked like shit, almost falling asleep and a little green. Look Kids, Weed is a Gateway Drug! Just Look At Ryan Ross!

His stomach felt a little more settled, and he could breathe out of half his nose, but his head still hurt and everything felt a little swimmy, so he sat back down on the couch and pretended to read while he hid behind a book. 

Soon enough, just as Ryan was nodding off behind his book, Brendon burst back into the room with Zack following close behind and somebody else.

“GUYS GUYS GUYS LOOK WHO CAME TO OUR SHOW IT’S DAVID BOWIE!” he practically screamed, making Ryan’s head rip open, and he would kill Brendon if he had the energy. He felt extremely hot for some strange reason, but only in his head. The rest of him was freezing but he kind of felt like he was sweating through his clothes. 

Sure enough, there was David Bowie, and Ryan would have been a total fangirl if he could get his head to stop being all cloudy. His tongue felt really heavy too, so he kind of just gawked at David while his bandmates schmoozed up the rock legend. 

Ryan wanted to cry.

“Ry, are you okay?” Brendon asked, nudging Ryan’s shoulder. It hurt even though it shouldn’t have, and Ryan figured that his body was shutting down and failing him. 

Spencer laughed and answered for him. “He’s in shock. Ryan used to have your poster in his bedroom,” he told David, who laughed and smiled like it was the greatest thing ever. Ryan actually didn’t have a David Bowie poster, but he did have a David Bowie school folder some time during middle school. 

“It’s time,” one of the techies said. They all got up to go on stage (David was going to do the song ‘Under Pressure’ with them sometime near the end of the set) and Ryan had to wait a second for his head to stop pounding after he stood up. He could do this. He just had to go out there and play like he always did and try to sing for two hours and then he could go crawl into his bunk and die. That sounded really nice. Ryan would have been content curling up right on stage for a nap, but instead he put his guitar on and tried to keep his head from splitting open when the crowd erupted in cheers.

He thought he had been hot back stage, but the lights made it worse. He still felt kind of like shivering, because he was really cold at the same time. But he was fine, totally fine. He could almost breathe, at least.

The farther into the set they got, the worse Ryan felt. He totally fudged up some of his guitar parts, and forgot some of his back up vocals, and he was pretty grateful that Brendon captivated most of the audience’s attention. Still, his band mates noticed and kept throwing him glances. Ryan ignored them. He was fine. He was great.

They started the song ‘Under Pressure’ (the crowd had gone insane when Bowie came out, and Ryan used all his self control not to curl up and cry because his fucking head was killing him) and Ryan was hit with a sudden wave of killer nausea. He fucked up another guitar part in an attempt not to puke. Just his luck, Brendon chose that moment to wander over to him and practically grind up against him while he sang. Ryan was 95% certain that he was going to throw up all over Brendon, when suddenly his vision started fading black and the world pitched sideways and…

Ryan was vaguely aware of a thousand or so screaming girls (not the screaming he was used to. Not the ‘holy fuck I’ve looked into the face of God!’ scream, more like a ‘holy fuck somebody is dying!’ scream). He wondered who was dying, but was too disoriented to do anything. He felt kind of like he was falling, but also like he was frozen in place and his head was kind of full of static.

He woke up to someone smacking him in the face and batted the hands away. He tried to say, “Get the fuck off,” but it came out as “Gawfumneh!” and far whinier than he wanted. He heard people running around, Zack shouting “Get a paramedic!” and then Brendon shouting “He’s awake! He’s awake it’s okay!” He didn’t hear the crowd, and he wondered if he was still on stage or if he was dead or where he was. 

“You okay, man?” he heard a voice he didn’t recognize and blinked his eyes open. Brendon, Jon, David Bowie, and Zack’s faces all crowded Ryan’s vision, and it made him feel really claustrophobic and nauseous. The next thing he knew, he jerked up into a sitting position and threw up…

 

all over David Bowie… 

 

The paramedic people came and carried him off the stage, even though Ryan argued with Zack that he was fine, seriously, totally fine, until Zack snapped at him a bit harshly and Ryan backed down. David went off stage to change out of his disgusting clothes, and thankfully one of the techies was a Ryan Ross enthusiast who knew every Panic! song by heart and filled in for Ryan’s guitar for the end of the set. Brendon reassured the crowd that Ryan was fine, just got overheated, he was okay. David Bowie reassured Ryan that it was totally okay that he puked on him, no hard feelings, don’t worry about it. 

Ryan was going to die from embarrassment if he didn’t die from the flu first.

He must have fallen asleep while still with the paramedics, because he woke up in his bunk. There was a bandaid on his arm and a disgusting taste in his mouth, and he was momentarily confused as to what the hell was going on. Spencer was sitting in his bunk across from Ryan’s and saw Ryan had woken up. 

“You threw up on David Bowie,” Spencer said, and oh yeah… Ryan suddenly remembered everything that had happened the night before (?). What time was it anyways.

“It’s 3 p.m.,” Spencer told him, and Ryan realized he had been thinking out loud. He almost freaked out about making soundcheck, but the Spencer said, “We’re just on the road today, show tomorrow. You should go back to sleep.”

Zack came in then and lectured Ryan about telling people when he was miserably sick and not passing out on stage and remembering to eat even if he felt like shit and what the fuck was wrong with him. Ryan just kind of laid there and blinked. His head still felt kind of foggy.

“Why the hell was your puke pink?” Zack asked, once he caught his breath from his speach. 

“Pepto,” Ryan said, blushing furiously and burying his face in his pillow. 

Zack laughed and left, and Ryan peeked out at Spencer. 

“If you scare me like that again I’ll kick your ass,” Spencer said and flicked Ryan in the ear. “Go back to sleep,”

 

Ryan woke up again to a warm on his forehead and frowned. Someone was sweaty. It was probably him. 

“You have a fever,” Brendon said, pulling his hand back. “I have some water and medicine for you to take. Zack said you’re supposed to drink all the water so you don’t get dehydrated,”

Ryan groaned miserably, which for some reason Brendon took as an invitation to crawl into his bunk and sit cross legged next to him.  
“C’mon, sit up,” 

Ryan pouted but did so, and he made it very clear that he was totally against the idea while he choked down the medicine and then tried not to throw the water back up. 

“Lay down,” 

He wasn’t sure when he had started taking commands from Brendon, but he listened anyways, cause his head was too heavy and he wanted to curl up till his stomach stopped tossing around. Brendon left for a moment and came back with a wetted paper towel, which he pressed to Ryan’s forehead. Nothing had ever felt as good as that God damned paper towel.

Brendon sat in the bunk with him again and untangled his upper half from the crazy web of blankets that he’d made in his bunk. He urged Ryan to sit up a little and helped peel him out of his sweaty shirt. He nudged Ryan back down on his stomach and rubbed his back, and Ryan could have sworn his undying love to Brendon at that moment because it felt so good he wanted to die, in a good way. 

 

It felt good enough to put him back to sleep, and he woke up again some unknown amount of time later to no Brendon and a ringing cellphone. He answered it and croaked out ‘Lo?’ 

Hysterical laughter erupted on the other end, and Ryan sighed. He waited a few minutes, figuring it’d stop eventually, but when it didn’t he hung up on Pete and went back to sleep.


End file.
